The Campaign
by SmilingJester
Summary: There are hundreds of paths laid before the Sole Survivor, to be a villain, a hero, a savior, or even a nobody. But at some point, they just have to do what is needed for the greater good of everyone else of the wastelands.
1. Chapter 1

Alan ducked his head as he entered the new classroom at Springvale High. Once more, he had no friends there as he entered. The teacher noticed him and brought him to the front of the class to introduce him. His hands were clutching the straps of his backpack as he shuffled to the front, all eyes now on him.

"Class, we have a new student today!" The woman announced, gesturing to the slouched boy in the front. "Would you introduce yourself?"

"I'm..." he glanced up before looking back down. "Alan Jericho."

"Mister Jericho has skipped grades and I hope you make him feel welcome in this year."

"He looks twelve!" One student called out and the rest of the class laughed.

"I am," he mumbled and this got the class laughing more.

The teacher shouted them down and the class settled. "Please sit in an open seat." The woman said and he shuffled to one such seat, in the middle of people four years his seniors. Now to start a new year in the middle of things once more because his parents expected too much. He kept his head down.

The preteen walked out at the bell and made his way to the next class on his schedule for another repeat of introductions and getting laughed at. He knew high school would be bad, but he never thought it'd be so bad so fast. He hated it, but he just adjusted his backpack and pen pouch as he walked.

Someone bumped into him, causing him to sprawl onto the ground. He sniffed as he got up, angry, but was intimidated down when he was glared at by the bigger teen and his gang. They just circled him, laughing at him as he gathered everything that fell. He cowered back from them and ran to his next class, their laughter, cruel and high pitched, lingering in his ear long after they stopped.

He knew he'd hate high school.

His first day ended with him walking home, rubbing his eyes. He opened the door, his parents waiting for him. "Hey Honey!" His mother greeted him and turned off the television she was watching. "Go get started on your homework and studies while I get dinner started." He nodded, keeping his head down.

He walked to the study room. A bland room he had grown to despise, with a shelf of practice books, study aids, and textbooks. Plastered on the wall was a list his father had made.

"A path to success is from study and diligence!"

Alan hated it, but it was what he had grown us to. He didn't have homework, but had to work for four hours, so he put his bag down, then grabbed some practice books he was working through. Today would be… Calculus and Physics.

The clock above clicked down from four hours ever so slowly, the silence of the room besides his pencil scratching paper burrowing in his ears. At five minutes until he was finish, his father came home and checked if he was working. He peeked in and Alan heard him, but when he looked up, the man was already gone. Not a hello to be spoken.

He finished as the clock buzzed. As he hit the off button, his mother opened the door and told him dinner was ready. He put everything away, washed his hands, and silently walked downstairs to have some food.

He was cutting his steak slowly when his mother asked, "How was your new school, Honey?"

"It was fine," he mumbled.

"Speak up," his father ordered. "A mumbler is a spy in waiting!" Alan slouched a bit more. "And straighten your back! You're an American, not a Chinaman!" He straightened his back off the command and just continued eating, not looking up.

When his plate was clear, Alan placed his fork and knife down. "May I go read, Mother?" The woman looked him over. His mother looked like most urban moms. An elegant hairstyle, slim face that had smile lines. A light bit of make-up always caked on that was cleaned and replaced every morning. A simple sundress with an apron most always on.

"Did you finish all your homework?" She questioned.

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied.

"All your studies?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Okay… only for an hour, then you have to do language studies!" Her finger came up and pointed at him, warning him that there was no way out of it. No matter how long he had worked, she always was ready for the day he would slack off for that one minute that would cost him his college scholarship to Harvard.

"Yes, Ma'am," he mumbled and took his plate to the sink, washing it, then putting it on the drying rack. He walked back upstairs and got to his room. He looked at his bookshelf, the only thing in his room besides a desk and a bed, and looked for what book he wanted to read.

Sometimes Alan wished he could have some comic books like other twelve year olds. He didn't think one would rot his brain like his mother kept saying. The few he snuck a peek at in school didn't make him dumber, and while Gronark was kind of silly to him, he liked it. But instead, he picked out one of the 'nerd' books as his class mates called them.

"Not Shakespeare," he mumbled, having finished the last of his works. Or the ones his parents let him read off recommendations from their books. "Not Alan Watts..." He went down his book list, looking for something he hadn't read yet, but he knew he had read them all. All the books were as old as he was, as his parents had gotten them just before he was born to prepare him for college.

Alan… he didn't like thinking about how smart he was. He knew he was called a genius, having skipped three grades. But all his smarts did was ruin his life, hence why he was looking at works that were older than his grandparents instead of normal fun books he'd sometimes sneak into the library during lunch to read. Those were his favorites. Not these old philosophers, enlightenment guides, and books where he hated all the main characters.

So he just picked out his favorite book series that was about a war hero coming home. It was a study on how he overcame the enemy and such. It was as close to a fantasy story with a knight as he had ever gotten at home. It was his favorite growing up, seconded only to some of Alan Watt books, his namesake. He was glad he was named normally at least.

So he settled on his bed and opened the well-worn book. The hour went by far too fast for his liking. It was only when he was reading a book he liked time moved so fast for him. He wished studying was like that, and not the snail crawl it felt like.

Alan's mother opened the door to see him reading and clapped her hands, making the lanky boy jump in fright. He looked over and she pointed at the clock. Alan was upset that his reading was interrupted, but had learned long ago not to argue. He had finally grown out of the stage of not really caring about playing, but he still wanted something for himself.

He put the book back and followed his mother back to his study room. "Today, you're taking the final test for your japanese quiz!" She announced happily. "I'll be sending in your voice recording and papers to be graded to see if you need to continue. I expect a hundred percent, Alan!"

"Yes, Ma'am," he said and was sat at his desk where a packet already was. He just got to work on it as always. He had done this with several other languages, Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, and Russian. So he could be a translator if one was ever needed for the government. He finished and his mother took everything, putting it in the envelope.

Alan, feeling like he did the best he could, risked, "Can… I watch a movie now?" His mother just continued to package everything, not gracing the question with an answer.

"Continue studying your characters," she said as she marched out of the room. He slumped and got the practice books once more. Alan just silently followed her orders and continued working, the idea of maybe enjoying a movie for once leaving his head. 'It was a pipe dream anyways,' he thought to himself dejectedly. He didn't know where the idea came from.

The days slowly blended. School was a chore for him, making very little in the way of friends as he was completely focused on his academics. Though he did start making trips to the library to read for pleasure as ideas of rebellion from his 'peers' were planted in his head, his parent's absolute control nurturing the ideas.

Alan was too young to be interested in the more stereotypical rebellion, no sex, no drugs, but he went against his parents wishes. He expanded his horizon in literature past what they wished him to. It was thirty minutes a day he was able to read whatever he wanted, under the eye of the librarian who didn't mind if he read anything he wanted.

While his evenings were for study, private lessons, language studies, and his mornings were under the eyes of his parents so he could get read. That half hour he skipped eating in favor of reading about heroes and legends and anything else that caught his fancy, drove him on. It kept him motivated, not because his parents were dead set on him being a scientist or a doctor, he didn't know which, but his own goals of maybe being a hero one day. One that stood on his own without help, that protected people instead of him wanting to hide all the time and only obeying orders.

The year ended and the next, he had filled his schedule with the most advance classes he could. Or his parents had. Having already researched the best course of actions for his future.

Alan slowly grew more social skills with some people around, talking school with them. While he couldn't talk about games or comics or any normal stuff with them, the people were nice enough to at least let him be around. He didn't like being a hanger on to the group, but at thirteen, that was all he was resigned to. He didn't need friends, he could find those in his books. So the second year begun, he stopped trying.

His parents were focused on his grades, and when he dropped to a normal A instead of a hundred percent, they freaked out. He had just come home from school, his report card untouched in his bag. Alan was yelled at the one time he opened it before it got to them, so he just kept it sealed.

He handed it to his mother and went upstairs to do his homework, starting the clock. He was just sitting down when marching footsteps had him look up in time to see the door burst open. He was startled and dropped his book. Alan watched with wide eyes as his mother stormed in and loomed over him. "What. Is this?" She demanded, waving the piece of paper he assumed was his report card at him.

"My report card?" He asked, unsure what was happening.

"Yes, but why did you get a Ninety-six in a class?!" She shouted at him. "And in English too!" He didn't know what to say. He didn't know he did anything wrong in that class. "Wait until your father gets home! You are in for it!" She pointed at him, warningly as she backed out. "Get back to studying!"

She slammed the door behind her. Leaving the scared and wide eyed thirteen year old behind. He didn't know what he did wrong. Alan tried to study, but nothing stuck, fear of what his father would do to him distracting him, keeping the information from sticking.

The door downstairs opened and closed. His father was back. "Alan, get down here!" He heard the man yell moments later. He shuffled downstairs and peeked around the corner to where his parents were waiting. His father looking livid. "Get over here," he ordered through gritted teeth.

He shuffled with a hunch, scared. He stopped before his father. "You're failing a class?! What is wrong with you?!"

"I-I'm not!" he argued back but got cuffed aside the head by his father. He sniffed as he held his reddening ear, shying away from the angry man. "I-i-it's just a… ninety-six!"

"Anything but perfect is failing!" The man shouted at him, raising his hand and Alan shied backwards some more, getting just out of range of the man's swinging radius. "You're personal time is now dedicated to studying! So after dinner, you will go back up there and study until we say you can stop!"

"No!" He cried and the man swatted him across the head again, this one really hurting. Alan turned and ran from him, getting upstairs and locking himself in the study room. Tears welling up in his eyes. He sniffed and kicked the bookshelf in frustration as his fist tightened. "I hate them," he mumbled to himself as he wiped his eyes.

The next day, he wasn't in a good mood. He was even more quiet and subdued as he read his fantasy books. The teachers thought it was strange when he didn't take notes as he always did, just kept his head down on his desk, frowning.

That afternoon, he had to study for seven hours in the evening with only a break for food. He found without the hour break, nothing stuck anymore after the first session, so his languages suffered. He started sneaking books after the first week. Checking them out from school.

He could risk it as his parents checked at set times. Twenty minute intervals, so if he hid the book in his text books, pretending to work, they wouldn't bother him. It made things, a bit more tolerable when he could study anymore. He flirted with the idea of not studying at all, but if his pace slowed with the practice books, they'd figure something was up.

His second year of high school passed with him being miserable, him acting out more and more often. Nothing overt, but more not listening to his parents. He would read what he wanted at school, hiding it from them. He took an interest in medicine, the act of saving someone's life, not biology. He studied first aid and found that by practicing with a first aid kit he bought with money gotten by doing people's homework, he made a discovery about himself.

He SUCKED at book learning in comparison how well skills stuck by practicing them. It just… clicked when he did the action. He knew the theory of wrapping a bandage, but as he did it on a dummy he made, the more he practiced, the more solid it became. This worked for every first aid skill. He took up crafts at school, just making little models of things to help him learn. Mostly out of toothpicks during his free time, but just building something and seeing how it worked in a three-dimension space was leagues above just reading things.

The third year, he secretly applied for early graduation, forging his parents' signatures. He was finished and he had an idea that he could just… not go to school and be independent for those eight hours. Do what he wanted out of a controlling enviroment.

As he worked hard at school to not have anything come under scrutiny, Alan heard about a military assembly that was free for students to go to during lunch. The boy, interested in the military as any teen was in a time of war, he followed everyone to the assembly hall.

He took a seat and when things started, two soldiers in power armor walked out with an officer looking man between them. There was a movie about sticking it to the commies in Anchorage for America, painting the military life as a thing of luxury and heroism. Where people come into their own and became true 'Men' and 'Women.'

It spoke to the teen's want for something more in his life, to be a hero. After the assembly was over, they had lunch. The military man was at a table there with papers. Alan glanced around nervously and walked up. "Hello," he quietly greeted the officer.

The man looked at him and nodded. "Umm..." he rubbed his hands together. One hand going up until the fingertips were on the heel of his hand and then opposite. Something to keep his hands moving and not with his fingers clutched. "I was… curious. The show mentioned… medics?" The officer nodded.

"Thinking about enlisting?" Alan nodded nervously. "Medic ehh? What do you want to know?"

"Who can be medics? Not doctors or anything, or trauma surgeons… but people that… you know… help those people?"

"Well, like you said, not everyone can be a doctor, but if your willing to buckle down and learn, anyone can become a medic after a ten week extra course to go with the five weeks of boot camp," The officer patiently explained to the lanky fourteen year old. "Why do you want to be a medic?"

"Umm..." he looked down at his hands that were still rubbing together and consciously stopped them. "I… want to help people more than… fight people..." He said quietly.

"Good enough reason," the officer commented. "Well..." he handed Alan a pamphlet. "This has the basics of what boot camp would be like and a list of recruiters to talk to about joining.

"Thank you, sir," Alan quietly said and the man nodded. The teen retreated and went to the library to read. He looked over the pamphlet and liked what he saw, ideas already forming in his mind.

Three months after his fifteenth birthday, he had graduated high school, not notifying his parents at all about it. He got his diploma, hid it under his bed, and since he was suppose to still be in classes, he was able to leave the house in the morning without suspension.

Alan made his way to a haircuttery place. He made an appointment and sat in the chair, getting the first haircut of his choice in his life. The sides were shaved down to leave the top trimmed up and pulled back. An Urban Ranger hairstyle that was popular with the more criminal elements.

Looking at himself in the mirror as the barber finished, his face had gained about a year from the haircut. Paying the barber, he then made it to his next and really final stop for the day. The recruiters office.

He walked in and applied for the medical corp of the united states army to be deployed on the front to keep people alive. He got the form and filled it out. His name, Alan Jericho. Age, eighteen. His current address, Springvale, Maryland. His race was caucasian. He gave his home phone number. Checked the box to be a medic or 'Combat Medical Technician' on the form for his chosen field and was done.

Turning the form in, he was called in to be talked to. The recruiter looked him over. "First, that hair style, it's out. Maybe when you're in Ancorage you can get it back, but in boot camp, the top is too long."

"Yes, sir," Alan nodded, not minding. It was an act of rebellion and a trick to age his face. The recruiter nodded at the easy acceptance of the idea of losing his hair. The man gestured for him to take a seat and read his form over.

"Alright, Mister Jericho. Why do you want to be a medic?"

"I… want to help people in the war over… hurting them." Alan wanted to be a hero. He would never voice that opinion as he knew people would call him stupid.

"Alright," the man said. "Just sign this contract and you will be officially part of the united states army. You will take your ASVAB test at the local college outside DC on..." he looked at a set of papers to the side. "The twentieth and you will report back here on the twenty-fifth for results and consultation."

"Yes, sir," Alan said and read the contract over. He signed the dotted line, effectively selling his body and mind to the united states war machine. The two stood and he shook the officer's hand. He left and got his head shaved at a barber.

His parents were horrified he got his head shaved and demanded the reason why he did it. Alan replied with just a 'he didn't know' and he was grounded for the action, as it was not christian or academically helpful. His mother moaning how he would never get into a college with that hair and how he might be expelled. Him being grounded changed absolutely nothing in his life. Shaving his head, even if he didn't much like the look, it felt amazing to take that little bit of control over his own body from his parents. It was a little thing, but it filled him with a sense of independence he craved.

The ASVAB test was simple as could be with how much he studied and knew the material. He had researched the subjects on it in the library and spent his 'school days at the library, studying the material he'd need to know to pass. In and out, and since he was by himself, he could practice it by buying some wires to play with or making models of cars using toothpicks to cement the auto-mechanical knowledge that was said to be needed.

He arrived at the recruiting office at the time he was told to and was with the ten teenagers three years his elders. One by one, they were talked with until he got there. The man looked at his score and then to the teen. "You got a ninety-nine on your AFQT score." The top score one could get. "You can be in any branch you want to be in."

"Can I… still be in the medical branch, sir?"

The officer laughed and nodded. "You can be in any branch. You still want to be a medic, one on the front?" He nodded. "Good enough, not going to convince you out of something we need. Report to this location in a week." He got the summons from the man. "Welcome to the United States Army, Recruit. Hope to see you keeping our brothers and sisters alive on the front." Alan stood and the man did too, shaking hands. Alan's hand trembling a bit with anxiety.

The teen stood at the front door on the day of his time to leave, the bag of necessities in hand. His father had already gone to work, but his mother was in the kitchen, cleaning up breakfast. His hand was on the doorknob. He turned to look down the hall, but just took a breath. Alan looked back at the door, silently opening it and walked out, closing it behind him as he started walking to the bus depot to get to his new life. As he stood with everyone waiting, he couldn't help but start having doubts.

But when that bus rolled to a stop in front of the line of waiting recruits. Alan listened to the sergeant shout for everyone to load up. His life had trained him to follow orders and this one was just a more… clear driven one. Get on the bus, and go be a soldier. His steps turned from nervous to sure as his shoe touched the first step. He wanted independence and to help people. HIs second step was filled with confidence.


	2. Update

Hello. So... I have not posted anything for a very long time. I've been writing every day, but nothing I make I want to post at all. I've had college, and full time work, so i need to do something that can be profitable for me. This is a fun hobby, but I will admit, the flames are getting to me. I don't like being insulted and my work trashed for no reason given. or how my ideas are stupid. But I'm getting off topic. I'm going to be trying to get stuff out again, **Vampire** is done, **Vulpine** is done, **Anko** is done, I'm not going back to them. bardic Clearer... I don't know with that, that's a hobby piece. **A King Reborn** is NOT, but is on haitus until I get the spark back for Harry Potter stuff, same with **Tearing A Soul**.

 **The Campaign** and **Gamer Arc** are the stories I'm going to be 'focusing' on if there was any words. I have the stories written, I'm not taking suggestion on the route. if you do not like, I can't stress this enough. If you do not like what you read, go find someone else to read from. I don't need your insults about the direction of the stories I'm giving you for free. I know I sound bitter here, I am. This place just saps the motivation from my soul sometimes but I will try to get more content out.

This will be deleted when I get the next chapter of Gamer's Arc or Campaign out, as it will be going on both.


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